Poor Ritsu had to work half Saturday and all of Sunday, so I had to come up with a good idea to keep Julius entertained …
He has become quite the treasure hunter since I introduced him to geocaching (a GPS based treasure hunt game) and this way we spent quite some time in the woods around Turin, in areas that otherwise we probably would have never visited …
We had targeted 5 caches and found 4 of them. And I have already mapped out a bunch for the next weekend.
There are so many great aspects about this sport: you get to explore places that otherwise you would never see. Great family outdoors fun at minimal cost (gas to drive there), perfect mix of tech-geek pleasure and running through the jungle, dessert, forrest.
| “The sport where YOU are the search engine” |  |
… when he can have an ice pop with his friend Lucy!
(I am planning to get around this week to do all last 3 weeks updates … so many pictures to show and stories to tell. Please bear with me. If you keep scrolling down you might already see the one or other, but once I am done I will make one nice summary page with direct links to all updates.)
Part of today’s kids’ club schedule was a mystical hike in the evening, looking for fairies, wizards, elves and dwarves …
… turning big leaves into dwarf hats:
and the best part: torches!
Just like papa, he is fascinated by things burning!
Yeah, thanks to the kids’ club at our hotel, which started today, Ritsu and I went hiking without Julius for probably the first time since the horror hike of Mt. Korobaba in Fiji. And we took on the hike around a fantastic mountain lake in 2000m altitude.
We took a cable car up to Douglas Hütte and then first did the longer, but more even path … sure enough we also had a geocache to hunt down. We stopped at the Lüner Alm, which is very low key, but sells fantastic fresh milk and buttermilk and nice ham sandwiches.
The second half of the hike is a bit more challenging, but also fun .. and we got to spot some marmots (groundhogs?). It was quite windy, but super sunshine!
Lots of pics below:
Very nice breakfast albeit cheap-o cold cuts and eggs too hard boiled. The bottle of champagne is a nice gesture, but appears to be a leftover from yesterday’s welcome cocktail (half full, and we were the first guests to arrive for breakfast)
We go back and take the nearby dorfbahn to the next station (we have been told to wait with the hike around Lüner See until next day, better weather and less visitors to be expected).
Julius was overall ok with the hike, but dragged on occasion, he just had to explore each and every pebble, flower and bug (and the occasional flat frog)
Around lunch time we reached the hut and had a nice (tad small-ish) wiener schnitzel, and as the clouds turned more and more gray, we commenced our return hike, which now was mainly way down, thus faster … But sure enough the rain got us … Good we had packed rain gear.
After a happy return and ice and cake from the included buffet, we napped to be ready for the nice dinner.
Today is Peter’s birthday!!!
We went up to the mountains by the cable car just close to our hotel and hiked for a couple of hours. Again, Julius walked very well.
Just like last year on Peter’s birthday, it started to rain on the way back… Nevertheless, it was a nice hike and I’m sure Peter had a good time!
I will let him write about the birthday gifts I gave him this year…
… even though Julius can make it quite hard at times …
We had a great week in the Ziller valley, mostly great weather, a fantastic farm house all to ourselves and we got to hike and geocache quite some.
Just a teaser picture for now, I don’t think I get to do any past updates until we are back home, but maybe I get to do some more fresh pics this week.
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One of the few rainy days, so a perfect chance to visit the nearby adventure spa in Fügen.
Julius was very happy and excited, the water area offers so much for everyone. Not all attractions are on all the time, they get switched around (so Ritsu waited quite some time for those bubble lounges) … one highlight was the current merry-go-round, where strong streams of water whirl everything in one circular direction and you just get carried away.
And then of course the big slide, what an adventure. Too bad that lining up for it takes easily 20 minutes (for a 25sec ride).
Below video shows very nicely that Julius is in no way afraid of dunking his head under water, you can even see that he keeps his eyes open and that he is smiling. The other highlight is the actual ride on the slide, Julius securely in one arm and the camera in the other … on occasion very dark (since there was no light at times) but one gets the idea and can make our Julius sounds of excitement.
After 3 h of water fun, the little guy was so tired that he slept through his cheeseburger lunch at McD’s, even though he was initially very excited about it. Close by were also some nice outlet stores where we purchased a new, more hike-y backpack.
For dinner I experimented with a single-use bbq set, which is a nice idea (for campers maybe) but I think the single layer of coal just did not generate enough heat to give the pork the nice typical bbq burn marks that I love.
But still, it was fun and tasty and we ate outside.
Today’s geocache inspired hike turned out to be one of the most fun hike days so far. Found parking thanks to GPS then 1.5 h mildly uphill along a nice creek, Julius only a few times in donkey mode.
When we reached the alm I found that the cache is along a different route, so while Julius enjoyed the playground I tracked back and went to hunt down the cache, which easily added 2.5 km to my hiking total (on top on the 5 km we all did together)
Back at the alm, since it was Sunday, there was live music and the manager tried himself as a stand up comic, which was quite entertaining. We ate Tiroler G’roesti and Kaiserschmarn, Julius kept playing and socializing with kids of all ages. Gladly the playground was very visible from our table, so we all could enjoy and relax.
Thanks to the nice weather and the very nice place, we stayed for 2.5h until we start our hike back down to the car. Playing catch kept Julius moving very well. As soon as we were in the car, Julius fell asleep and he and Ritsu took a nice nap back at our house while I was preparing dinner: Minute steaks with chanterelle mushrooms.
Our days have been fun-packed, hectic and thanks to Julius sometimes a bit stressful … but we did two fairly big hikes the past 2 days (while it was sunny) and today we kept things a bit mellow … e.g. using the free paddle boats on Arosa’s Obersee, being chased by a greedy swan.
The internet connection here has been on and off and unreliable .. and tomorrow we are moving on to where I am pretty certain I will not have any connection at all. So I wanted to have at least posted one new picture and there will be tons more … once I get to it 
Everyone enjoy their summer !!!
Oh, and Julius says thanks to all the good wishes so far!
The included Arosa card gives us free access to cable cars and so we hop on and get up to the 2650m Aroser Weisshorn. From there we have a fairly steep way down. Initially Julius does not move at all, but once he gets going we are on our way. Julius prefers to walk with oba-chan, he is also very excited when we find an ice / snow patch. Weather is great and the vista ist stunning.
After 2.5h of hiking we are having lunch at Carmanna hut, saussages and schnitzel sandwich.
1 more hour to middle station, Julius still walking well (much easier hike now). The promised playground keeps him going. He plays a bit there with a bunch of kids, but he is getting visibly tired.
Lots of pictures:
We head down and I give him a shoulder ride back to the hotel, hoping he falls asleep, which does not happen. Instead he plays again in the grand parents room and I have to force him under loud protest to take a nap … Which happens kinda late which results in a very grumpy kid for dinner.
He finds a playbuddy: Sebastiano .. While very cute, it does not make feeding him easier. But at least he shares his birthday cake with him
Getting Julius to bed is again a loud and tearful affair.
Happy Birthday little man!
Despite his ongoing ‘no’ phase (“Hey, Julius, it is your birthday!!!” … “No!”), he started to get excited and happy to see his place set up with smarties, the 4 candles on a small Sachertorte (the only thing I could get last minute here) and of course the big train set his Japanese grand parents brought (He is a total train nut and has 3 different systems already … )
The big fun of the day was chasing the little guy down the Aroser Weisshorn mountain. We took the cable car to 2.600 m peak and after a bit of a hassle with him we commenced our 2.5 h trip down .. quite steep in places … then we had a little lunch break and then we had another hour to walk (easier this time) to get back to the cable car …
More on that later .. we still have to eat that cake.
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It was time to pack our bags again to move to our second stop on this year’s mountain trip: off to Arosa.
There was some initial confusion about which route to take, the GPS wanted to send us all over Switzerland using the highways. So we use google and actual paper maps and then took Route 19 which took us straight through the country over the very beautiful Furka Pass (the glacier there is the source of the river Rhone).
We found our hotel quickly and heard that Ritsu’s parents had just checked in 5 minutes before us.
Julius was initially a bit shy but then he was all over oba-chan and oji-chan (also, he got to open some presents early, which helped)
The hotel as a very nice double jacuzzi room, which Ritsu and I checked out right away. For dinner there was a great mixed BBQ meats buffet and probably the most elaborate salad buffet I have ever seen. The advertise that they have at least 25 different items, but I counted more than 30.
Julius immediately switched seats so that he can sit next to oba-chan and later he found some other kids to play with.
Afterwards we strolled to the upper lake to watch an illuminated water fountain spectacle.
We arrived yesterday in Zermatt, Switzerland to commence this summer’s mountain tour.
And today we hopped on a train going all the way up to the Gornergrat, enjoying the fantastic views of the Matterhorn and then hiked down as long as Julius current ‘no’ this and ‘no’ that attitude would allow (which actually kicked in 5 minutes after leaving the train .. but took 3 hours before it became unbearable)
The young man has reached a phase in life casually referred to as the ‘fucking four’ (the sequel to the ‘terrible two’s')
We are very lucky with the weather and will already change location tomorrow … so .. updates will be very sporadic on this trip … so .. hang in there.
After hectic packing out of the house by 9:15, beautiful journey along Lago Maggiore, then Simplon pass (which we did 2 years ago in the other direction)
Arrived in Taesch around 3PM, parking and catching the shuttle train to Zermatt (Zermatt is car free, so you have to take the train, but everything is very well explained and prices were reasonable) no problem. Hotel very nice, beautiful views of the Matterhorn.
First walking around, first shopping in surprisingly big Migros supermarket. Back to our hotel, then dinner at “Le Mazot’ .. Very nice rack of lamp and chanterelle mushroom sauce.
The appetizer was slightly boring dried meat (well, basically a very very good prosciuotto, which Julius ate like regular ham) … Very nice but a bit on the pricy side (well … Zermatt) .. Interesting to see how often you find signs and menus in Japanese.
Apologies for the briefness of this entry, but as often with our summer trips, free wi-fi is hard to come by (this time it was not even from the hotel, but some open minded neighbour).
Here is my review of ‘le petite hotel’
Le Petit Hôtel
Metzggasse 38
CH – 3920 Zermatt
Tel: +41 (0) 27 / 967 59 00
Fax: +41 (0) 27 / 967 59 03
E-Mail: info@hotel-zermatt.com
Today we crossed the hills again to visit our friends Sarah & Jan to celebrate Sebastian’s birthday.
Big pirate themed party with about 10 kids, all of them about 2 years older than Julius. He first was a bit confused and needed some warm up time, but then when the treasure hunt started, he was running around with the whole bunch and had lots of fun.
I have lots more pictures which I shall put up later.
Big thanks again to Sarah & Jan for throwing such a fun party.
update, as promised, I have sorted through the photos and you can check the gallery here.
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